From Beijing to London to Washington to other points on the map of this globalized economy, “inequality” has become a hot topic. China has its own methods of handling those the regime’s leaders feel have engaged in excessively conspicuous consumption. But show trials and re-education are tools not readily available to politicians in democratic countries.

Liberals may love its priorities. Voters don’t.

Democrats have moved to the left in the Obama era. And if the party’s base, President Obama, and Senator Elizabeth Warren have their way, they will move even further to the left in the next two years. Liberals will rejoice, but there’s a downside. The Democratic nominee will have a considerably harder time winning the presidency in 2016.

Why the left can’t tolerate this movie.

"So-called ‘sand movies,’ the term Hollywood sometimes uses for films set in Afghanistan and Iraq, have a terrible box office track record,” noted the New York Times. Or rather, they had a terrible box office track record. The release of American Sniper, a biopic about Iraq war veteran and legendary Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, has changed all that.

The unbearable lightness of Ronan Farrow and friends

I don’t like to make too much of all the celebrity heirs who, in an extremely down media market, somehow keep on snagging major journalism gigs. It makes me sound bitter and envious and uncharitable, all of which I sort of am. But how can anyone help it? All the so-called smart people who run the networks keep on hiring them, at vast expense and for no good reason.

"Ruth Bader Ginsburg Is an American Hero," reads the headline in the New Republic. But despite talking to an "American Hero," Jeffrey Rosen, the magazine's legal affairs editor, still wants to know whether the Supreme Court justice will hang up her robe.

On July 16-19, the online progressive community held its annual “Netroots Nation” conference in Detroit. The irony of holding such an event in a desiccated husk of a formerly great metropolis undone by unionism and unfettered liberal governance was mostly lost on the crowd, and the gathering made no real news until it was over.

The City University of New York must really be rolling in dough. The school’s administration recently turned down a $10 million grant from the Koch brothers to establish a new financial center at Brooklyn College. The business dean explained that he would have to focus on the school’s accreditation process instead. As if receiving a large donation has ever stood in the way of accreditation.

Democrats habitually congratulate themselves on being the brainy party. They’re rational and rely on empirical evidence for their views. Or so they insist. And they strongly believe in science and are quick to accuse Republicans of being antiscience—that is, dopey and inclined to fall for pseudoscientific notions like astrology. Indeed, some supposedly scientific researchers regard belief in astrology as a measure of how conservative you are.

Obamacare is inimical to their values, too

Obamacare may or may not survive its inauspicious beginnings. It has become dangerously unpopular and accident-prone and faces a minefield of difficulties. Still, the Obama administration has a plausible strategy: to titrate the program’s numerous taxes, subsidies, mandates, and restrictions so as to forestall immediate legislative or electoral reversal, thereby entrenching its basic structure for tightening as future circumstances permit.

Meet Tony Abbott, the likely next prime minister of Australia

MelbourneAbsent a stunning reversal of fortune, Tony Abbott is a good bet to be the next prime minister of Australia. He’s the head of the Liberal party, which is expected to capture Parliament from the Labor party in the national election on September 7. In today’s politics, Liberals are misnamed. They’re actually the conservative party in Australia. So if all goes well, Abbott will become one of the world’s leading conservatives.

The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll indicates that the only group of Americans who remain strongly supportive of Obamacare are self-described “liberal Democrats.” Even “moderate or conservative” Democrats have started to jump ship en masse — as they’re now more likely to oppose Obamacare than to support it. Given that most Democrats (57 percent, according to the poll) claim to be either “moderate” or “conservative,” this poses a major problem for the Obama administration’s centerpiece legislation.

Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center, scaring donors since 1971

Last August a 28-year-old gay-rights volunteer named Floyd Corkins entered the office lobby of the Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian traditional-values group headquartered in Washington that condemns homosexual conduct and opposes same-sex marriage. Corkins took a gun from his backpack and fired three shots at building manager Leo Johnson, one of them wounding the unarmed Johnson in the arm before he wrested the gun from Corkins.